Current situation of retinopathy of prematurity management in premature infants in Foshan City

FU Hui-qing; DAI Yi-heng; JIA Xiao-qin; HE Li; GAO Shu-hui; WU Shi-guang

Abstract：Objective To investigate the current situation of retinopathy of prematurity ( ROP) management in tertiary hospitals of Foshan City and associated factors for evidence of standard oxygen therapy in preterm infants and fur-ther improvement of ROP management.Methods This was a retrospective multicenter investigation.Data of ROP man-agement in 24 hospitals of Foshan City in 2012 were collected via a clinically oriented questionnaire and analyzed.Results 4 783 cases of premature infants were treated in 24 hospitals in 2012, among them 2 232 cases with birth weight ( BW)<2 000 g, 753 cases with BW<1 500 g, and 57 cases with BW<1 000 g.12(50%) hospitals had ROP screening, 10 of whom conducted screening on their own and 2 of whom performed send-out screening.A total of 1 596 cases had been screened and 59 were positive for ROP,with a detection rate of 3.7%.Among 59 positive cases, 11 threshold ROP cases were detected with a detection rate of 0.69%.ROP treatment was not available in any hospital of Foshan City.Conclu-sion Tertiary hospitals of Foshan have considerable achievement in the aspect of oxygen therapy and ROP management. However, the screening rate and detection rate are low in most hospitals of lower levels.Problems exist including insuffi-cient oxygen therapy equipment, inadequate oxygen concentration monitoring, low ROP prevention awareness, lack of pro-fessional training and ophthalmology specialty staff.A standard paradigm of ROP management is strongly suggested to im-prove the overall quality of ROP management in Foshan City.